Turns out that concern for mankind's effect on the global climate isn't much of a concern at Davos this year. It is, after all, the meeting of the World Economic Forum, not the World Climate Forum - the United Nations already has a forum for climate change, and it drew a lot of ignoring this year, too. This year in Davos, Switzerland, though interest in all things climate seemed to be nearing an all-time low.
A recent article at Climate Change News discussing this week’s 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland worries that climate change is no longer a high priority for the attending global elites, while also attempting to reassure readers that the topic hasn’t disappeared entirely. It is true that climate change is dropping on the list of elites’ concerns, but it is not a bad thing. The attendees’ concerns are still wildly out of step with the concerns of average people who are impacted the most by the policies discussed and pushed at Davos.
The article, titled “Ahead of Davos, climate drops down global elite’s list of pressing concerns,” was written before the Davos event kicked off Monday, January 19, and focuses on a survey conducted by the WEF’s Global Risks Perception Survey of “experts” and leaders in advance of the meeting. This year, the survey found that for the first time in years, “climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss have dropped down an international ranking of short-term concerns for high-profile business leaders, academics, and politicians,” as priorities shifted towards more concern over “economic risks like geoeconomic confrontation, economic downturn, inflation, and asset bubbles bursting.” (See the graph, below, from the WEF).
Here's the chart:
— Ward Clark (@TheGreatLander) January 22, 2026
That's a novel notion. An economic forum worried about economics. Oh, the climate can have an effect on economics; there's little doubt about that. A real sockdologer of a climate crisis, like a major volcanic eruption, can have dramatic effects on everything from agriculture to fisheries, and if people can't eat, they have little time to worry about anything other than keeping their belly buttons from rubbing a hole in their backbones.
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As far as possible reasons for the shift, a polling form often used by the WEF found that this year the general run of citizens - you know, the people who elect a lot of the "elites" at Davos - are a lot more worried about the price of eggs than their carbon footprints.
Ipsos, a market research company the WEF frequently uses, reports in their annual “What Worries the World?” survey that climate change barely makes the top 10 issues most people in the world are concerned about. (see the graph, below)
Here's that chart:
— Ward Clark (@TheGreatLander) January 22, 2026
Personally, I'd prefer to think that people are just figuring it out. Unless a government is willing to go full Great Britain and tell the subjects - the Brits, we remind you, are not citizens, not as we think of the word - and say, "You'll have your electric cars and heat pumps, and you'll bloody well like it or else," then people just aren't seeing the point. Giving up the gas stove, the SUV, and the comfortable, gas-heated home, just to keep the Earth's mean temperature from rising by a degree and a half over the next century? Plenty of regular folks aren't buying the hype. They just don't see what the big worry is, and the people at Davos must be wetting their fingers and holding them aloft, because it sure seems like they know which way the wind is blowing.
That's a good thing.
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